Week of November 2, 2008

Suffolk County targets invasive aquatic plants in Yaphank

BY JENNIFER SMITH, Newsday.com

By autumn, little remains of the thick green carpet of plant life that covers Yaphank's Upper and Lower lakes for much of the year. But the weedy culprits - cabomba and variable leaf watermilfoil - are still here, washing in clumps over the dam at Mill Road or waiting, submerged, to bloom in spring.

Each year, dismayed residents here and at Canaan Lake in North Patchogue have watched the rampant growth of invasive aquatic plants turn these popular fishing spots into virtual swamps.

"The whole lake is just one mat of weeds," said Robert Kessler, an Upper Lake resident and member of the Coalition to Save the Yaphank Lakes. "By June you can almost walk across the lakes."

Now Suffolk County has taken up the problem with a $200,000 study on the best way to eradicate the pesky plants. The study should be completed sometime next year, with work expected to begin on a pilot project at Canaan Lake in 2010.

Options include dredging, dosing the water with herbicide, using a machine harvester to remove the plants or some combination of those techniques. Some have even proposed dismantling the dams that created the lakes in the first place - something Kessler and other Yaphank residents oppose.

Each method has drawbacks. And because rivers run through all three lakes, any action taken there would likely have consequences downstream.Nineteen-acre Upper Lake and 25-acre Lower Lake sit on the Carmans River, which the state has designated a scenic and recreational river. The main stem of the Patchogue River flows through 26-acre Canaan Lake, which is on the state's impaired waterways list because of nitrogen pollution."

It's a really complicated situation, because you're balancing the needs of the residents living on the lake and the issues they are facing, in addition to the ecological and financial issues," said Kathy Schwager, an invasive species ecologist with the Nature Conservancy on Long Island. The Conservancy was part of a coalition of concerned residents, environmental advocates and government officials that researched the issue for more than a year.

At times, the weeds cover 70 percent to 90 percent of the surface of the affected Brookhaven lakes, said Charles Guthrie, regional fisheries manager for the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Fish still swim there, but the overgrowth makes it hard to get to the water."

It has really ruined the recreational resource that the community of Yaphank and many others have enjoyed for hundreds of years, since the river was dammed," said Brookhaven Town Councilwoman Connie Kepert.

Last year Kepert set up the Carmans River task force to address the problem at Upper and Lower lakes. The group assembled detailed information on the lakes' plant life and other physical characteristics, and reviewed how other communities have dealt with cabomba and watermilfoil.

In Manorville, the Peconic River Sportsman's Club had tried using a mechanical harvester to remove cabomba from its private 45-acre lake, but the lake was too big for one machine to make much of a dent, Guthrie said.

The club had better luck with an herbicide known as fluridone. But that alone is unlikely to solve the problem in Yaphank and North Patchogue. The herbicide pellets have to remain in place for one to three months, a tricky proposition in a free-flowing river. And fluridone doesn't kill watermilfoil, which requires a different chemical called triclopyr. While both herbicides are approved for use in New York state, DEC regulations don't permit them to be used at the same time, Guthrie said.

Dave Thompson of Trout Unlimited, a fishing conservation group, says removing the dams would help because the plants don't thrive in cool, fast-moving water. It would also create more habitat for native brook trout. Residents have resisted that option, saying they want to restore the lakes' past recreational use. Article

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Town of Esopus purchases weed harvester

Dailyfreeman.com

Projects in Columbia and Ulster counties (New York) are among funding awards announced under the state Environmental Protection Fund's Local Waterfront Revitalization Program.

All grants are awarded on a 50-50 matching basis.

Receiving funding locally are:

* Town of Esopus, $59,088 to purchase a mechanical aquatic weed harvester to improve the town's aquatic vegetation control program, thereby preserving access to public beaches, use of non-motorized boating facilities and fishing areas of the river. Article

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Invading bugs ravage Georgia's forests

By Charles Seabrook for the Journal-Constitution

In Georgia’s rugged mountain forests and its lush maritime woods on the coast, ecological tragedies of great consequence are unfolding —- alarming die-offs of native trees from exotic insect pests.

On the coast, it is the red bay tree —- and possibly the sassafras —- that’s succumbing. Driving around Jekyll Island the other day, I saw scores of red bays dead or dying. I saw no healthy ones. The same situation is true for red bays in other maritime forests all along the Southeast coast. Killing them —- and threatening them with extinction —- is a relentless disease called laurel wilt.

Some reports indicate that the malady also may be spreading to our beloved sassafras trees, which are kin to red bays.

The disease is caused by a fungus spread by the exotic red bay ambrosia beetle (Xyleborus glabratus), a native of Asia. The beetle likely entered the country in wood packing material with cargo imported at Port Wentworth, Ga. Red bays began dying in Georgia and South Carolina in 2003.

“All of Georgia’s coastal counties now have confirmed laurel wilt, and the disease is moving northward in South Carolina, southward in Florida, and inland at an alarming rate,” said James Johnson, a tree disease expert with the Georgia Forestry Commission.

No known treatment exists, he notes. Landowners, loggers and others are asked to leave dead red bay trees in the woods and not salvage them for logs, chips or firewood.

Red bays are native to the Coastal Plain region from Virginia to eastern Texas. They are ecologically and culturally important, although of minor commercial timber value. Red bay trees provide fruit for songbirds, turkeys and quails. Deer and black bears browse on the foliage and fruits. The caterpillars of the palamedes swallowtail butterfly require red bay leaves for development.

More information: www.state.sc.us/forest/idwilt.pdf.

Mountain trees

In North Georgia’s mountains —- and throughout much of the Southern Appalachians —- it is the magnificent hemlock that’s dying by the tens of thousands. The cause is a tiny, exotic, aphidlike insect known as the hemlock wooly adelgid, also a native of Asia. It sucks the sap at the base of hemlock needles, which die and fall off. The tree then starves to death.

Hardly any area of the 750,000-acre Chattahoochee National Forest is untouched by the voracious pest. Dead and dying hemlocks —- large and small —- are now common sights along mountain streams, slopes and trails. Scientists say the hemlock, a major component of Southern Appalachian forests, could go the way of another once-common forest tree, the American chestnut, which was virtually wiped out by an exotic blight during the first half of the last century and has never recovered.

A sliver of good news is that special chemical treatments done by trained arborists can help hemlocks withstand adelgid infestations. The treatment is helping save some hemlocks in homeowners’ yards and at some forest campgrounds.

But for the vast majority of hemlocks in the forest, the treatment is impractical. About the only hope —- slim at best —- for the forest hemlocks is imported beetles that prey on the adelgid. Three Georgia institutions —- the University of Georgia, Young Harris College and North Georgia State College and University —- are raising the beetles in special laboratories for release into the forest. But funding is critical. The Georgia ForestWatch organization (www.gafw.org.) is trying to raise funds for the labs. Article

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Week of May 4, 2008

Grants will help us keep invasive milfoil in check in Maine

Bob Moore gets it. Moore's the head of one of the more effective lake protection organizations in the state, the Friends of Cobbossee Watershed. And when it comes to dealing with the highly destructive invasive aquatic plant milfoil, Moore says, "there's really no success stories."

No, there aren't. Until recently, Maine was the last of the lower 48 states to find its waters infested with milfoil, which comes in a number of varieties. Milfoil's a plant whose rampant and aggressive green growth can choke a lake, making it impossible to boat, swim or fish.

Over the last few years, the state has undertaken a concerted effort to keep the invasive weed out of its lakes and streams, but it has been a losing battle. By last year, 26 lakes and streams were found with the nasty stuff beginning its deadly march.

And as Moore so bluntly puts it, you can nuke the stuff with chemicals, you can pull it out, you can cut it, you can send divers in after it -- but you really can't get rid of it. All you can do is check its progress. Which is why it's such good news that the state has found a way this year to triple the amount of money it gives in grants to municipalities and organizations to fight invasive aquatic plants.

With the financial help of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection has just announced $60,000 in matching grants to local groups and towns and cities statewide, including Moore's group as well as groups from Messalonskee Lake in Oakland to Mousam Lake in southern Maine to Branch Lake in the Downeast region near Ellsworth.

Moore and his lake-loving colleagues across the state may not be able to ever eradicate the plant from our waters; it's too late for that. But here's hoping that the milfoil-busters are at least able to limit the plant's spread -- and keep Maine's lakes the way they should be. Article

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Amityville, New York lab at front in war on Asian beetles

By Jennifer Smith jennifer.smith@newsday.com

Long Island, New York trees still fall victim to the Asian long-horned beetle, the invasive insect that during the past 12 years has gnawed through more than 6,000 maples, elms and other hardwoods in New YorkState. But inside the Amityville war room for New York's beetle battle, researchers say the tide appears to be turning.

For the first time since the black and white bugs were initially detected on a Brooklyn maple in 1996, no live beetles of reproductive age were captured or even seen in New York in 2007. And in April the U.S. Department of Agriculture said the insects were eradicated from Illinois and from New Jersey's Hudson County. The progress follows concerted efforts to survey trees for signs of infestation and, in some cases, treatment of at-risk trees with insecticide to kill the wood-boring beetles.

"We're cutting down fewer and fewer trees each year," said Joe Gittleman, project director for the USDA's Asian long-horned beetle eradication program in New York. "The populations are significantly on the decline."

Some of that progress can be attributed to research done here in the USDA's office on Merrick Road, where scientists analyze felled trees for clues to how, and where, the Asian long-horned beetles spread.

The most recent new detection was in Massapequa, where trees showing signs of infestation were chopped down last year. All told, Long Island has about 30 square miles in quarantine - 23 in and around Amityville and seven in Islip. Full Article

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Corrective Action To Be Studied For Canaan Lake on Long Island

By Barbara LaMonica, Suffolk Life

The scenic waterfront vista from Jeanne Overton Wilkinson's family home on Canaan Lake in North Patchogue boasts the serenity of a diverse wildlife population, but an influx of unwelcome, invasive species has become increasingly predominant during the warmer months, peaking in August. The wild growth of such species as the cabomba and milfoil weeds over the last two decades is choking the lake and impacting activities that were once central to the community's recreational pursuits. The public beach, docks, boardwalk, snack bar, and open area where parents would take their children to feed the ducks are gone.

Various sources may be blamed for contributing to the decline. The now capped, town-owned Holtsville Landfill, which has been transformed into the Brookhaven Ecology Center, was the source of a leachate plume that fed into Canaan Lake. Add to that septic systems, runoff from roadways and lawn fertilizers, and there exists a recipe for disaster.

The Suffolk County Department of Health Services has initiated steps to address the issues at Canaan Lake. Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy introduced a resolution late last year for the appropriation of $250,000 for the study and weed removal process of Canaan Lake and the Upper and Lower lakes in Yaphank. "We have an RFP [Request for Proposal] to have a consultant conduct a water quality study, and to eventually determine the best method in this case for weed removal," explained Dan Aug, a spokesman for Levy.

Martin Trent, chief of the Division of Environmental Quality's Office of Ecology, acknowledged that residents living on and around the lake have contacted his office with concerns. "We took a look at the situation and saw that it was similar to what has been happening in Yaphank with the cabomba weed and milfoil that are choking the lake," Trent said. "We put together a Water Quality Protection Program for Suffolk County to consider and determine the best method, and we are looking into what might be the best corrective application to remove the weeds, which could be the use of herbicides, mechanical harvesting, hand picking," Trent explained.

Trent explained that the Legislature's $250,000 appropriation includes a $200,000 allocation earmarked for the study, and $50,000 for actual implementation of concrete recommendations that will be derived from the study. "One possible scenario is that Canaan Lake is a less complicated ecosystem than the Upper and Lower lakes, so weed removal could be done at Canaan Lake first," Trent said. "But that is only one possible scenario."

John Turner, Brookhaven Town's director of the Division of Environmental Protection, said the town is mindful of the situation. "We are aware of the issue, and any part we could play we will do," Turner said.

But what is occurring in Canaan Lake is not unique to that area. "They are in good company because there are many water bodies throughout Long Island that are plagued by excessive aquatic invasive species," Turner said. "We are going to make a concerted effort, but we need money to do invasive control work in these areas and, given the nature of the problem, the town has only limited resources and is using limited staff. We don't have the luxury to deal with all of the water bodies."

Turner says the causes plaguing Canaan Lake are twofold and are due, in part, to excessive nitrogen from sanitary and septic systems and lawn fertilizers, which "fuels excessive plant growth in streams, lakes and ponds." This, Turner said, coupled with "excessive development around these water bodies," has sparked the rising tide of aquatic weed growth.

Meanwhile, Brookhaven Town Fifth District Councilman Tim Mazzei said he will be looking to work with residents in any way he can to help address the issue with whatever resources the town may have. In projecting a timeline to launch the study of Canaan Lake in North Patchogue, and the Upper and Lower lakes in Yaphank, Trent said the county's intent is for the study to commence during the coming summer season, with "implementation of concrete recommendations" to begin in 2009. "

The final RFP has been drafted and will take a couple of weeks to go out," Trent said, before the county selects a vendor to conduct the study. Full Article

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Princeton invasive plant maps for Southeast now available

The Princeton Invasive Mapping Program has recently completed percent cover maps for privet, kudzu, and cogon grass across the Southeast. The maps are based on data contributed by many invasive plant experts from around the Southeast. You can download these maps and all associated data at http://invasive.princeton.edu/.

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Here's a link to US Fish and Wildlife Service's new invasive species website:

http://www.fws.gov/invasives/

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